State commission set up for Pope Francis visit

TIRANA, July 3 – Ahead of the historic visit of Pope Francis to Albania next September, the government has set up a state commission to organize and coordinate events for the second papal visit to post-communist Albania.
“The Pope’s visit is great news, a very good and comprehensive message, not only for Albania and Albanians but also for the whole region,” said Culture Minister Mirela Kumbaro, who will head the state commission on Pope’s visit.
Last June, Pope Francis announced he had chosen Albania for his first European trip, scheduling a one-day trip to Tirana on Sept. 21.
The visit aims to encourage a country that “long suffered” under a communist dictatorship which tried to isolate its citizens from the world, Vatican sources told the media.
Former dictator Enver Hoxha proclaimed Albania, for decades one of the world’s most isolated countries, the world’s first atheist state in 1967. Many religious buildings and clerics were destroyed and imams and priests were arrested.
Francis said he wanted to make the trip to “encourage a country that has long suffered from the consequences of the ideologies of the past.”
Albania has a large Catholic minority, which makes up the largest part of the population in the country’s two northwestern regions.
Communism collapsed in Albania in 1992 and the late Pope John Paul II visited the following year. It will be the second papal visit to post-communist Albania after one by Pope John Paul II in 1993.